Blown Over

Yesterday and today have been very windy and today’s Blipfoto shows flowers lying down on the ground.

I believe these are summer chrocus. I am also fairly sure they bloomed in the Spring.

The mystery is that we never planted them. No matter.

Late yesterday, so nearly today we had a FaceTime call with my sister-in-law Vicky who showed us around her "Policies" (to use a Scottish term) which form her home in California.

Mark and Vicky have been affected by the forest fires, but perhaps not as dramatically as elsewhere in the state.

The sky over them is blue and the mountains nearby can be seen through the haze. They are now recovering from the falls of ash.

They suffered two days when the solar panels did not create electricity. Now that they have cleaned their panels which are located on the ground they are working again. If they had been on the roof the task would have been far more difficult.

Vicky welcomes the wild life around her and yesterday she was visited by a flock of nearly 100 humming birds who drew sustenance from the bird feeders, bathed and cleaned themselves in the bird bath and drank copious amounts of fresh water.

They were lucky, and we wondered how much wild life has died in the fires. We chatted about family matters, and discussed our relatives throughout the States and in Portugal.

Most are doing well, but one or two of the older family members (much older than us) are needing special care and attention.

We must have spent about two hours "chewing the fat and shooting the breeze".